This invention relates in general to mining devices and in particular to a new and useful convertible rope pulling-walking machine.
The invention relates particularly to a rope pulling machine with a divided machine frame composed of a pulling station movable back and forth in the longitudinal direction of the rope and a gripping station connected to the pulling station via a main cylinder/piston arrangement. Both the pulling station and the gripping station have an auxiliary cylinder/piston arrangement for each of two grippers, and the two grippers are linked via bearing shafts to the auxiliary cylinder/piston arrangement and they also have clamped jaws aligned in a rope direction. The clamping jaws are linked via bearing shafts to the pulling and gripping stations, respectively, and have a control device for the main cylinder/piston and auxiliary cylinder/piston arrangements for their respective motion cycles.
In such a rope pulling machine, the two grippers operate intermittently, the one gripper keeping the load attacking the rope in a position at rest while the other gripper performs the return travel to regrip the rope. Basically, when two grippers each are used, the operation can also be performed so that the load can be raised or lowered continuously without interrupting its motion. In both cases, an unlimited stroke is achieved due to the alternately working grippers, considering that the pulling station is movable back and forth.